Related papers: Observing Galactic Black Hole Sources in Hard X-ra…
We will briefly discuss the importance of sensitive X-ray observations above a few tens of keV for a better understanding of the physical mechanisms associated to the Supermassive Black Hole primary emission in both radio quiet and radio…
The thesis studies the X-ray emission from the Galactic compact objects (accreting neutron stars and black holes), using mainly the RXTE data. In particular following results have been included: spectral evolution of X-ray transients GRS…
The inner 20 gravitational radii around the black hole at the centre of luminous Active Galactic Nuclei and stellar mass Black Hole Binaries are now being routinely mapped by X-ray spectral-timing techniques. Spectral blurring and…
We study the hard-X-ray spectral properties of ten highly luminous radio-quiet (RQ) active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at z=1.3-3.2, including new XMM-Newton observations of four of these sources. We find a significant correlation between the…
Black-hole binaries are important sources through which studying accretion onto compact objects. In the X/gamma-ray domain, these objects show several and complex spectral behaviours and transitions. Based on INTEGRAL observations collected…
The thesis is mainly devoted to the study of spectral and timing characteristics of the X-ray emission from Galactic black hole candidates GRS 1915+105, GX 339-4, 4U 1630-47, XTE J1748-288, GRS 1739-278, KS/GRS 1730-312 and GRS 1737-31. The…
In spite of increasing evidences of the presence of a massive Black Hole at the Galactic Center, its radio counterpart, Sgr A*, shows little activity at high energies, and recent models involving energy advection (ADAF) have been proposed…
X-ray polarimetry promises to give qualitatively new information about high-energy sources. Examples of interesting source classes are binary black hole systems, rotation and accretion powered neutron stars, Microquasars, Active Galactic…
Stellar-mass black holes in the low-hard state may hold clues to jet formation and basic accretion disk physics, but the nature of the accretion flow remains uncertain. A standard thin disk can extend close to the innermost stable circular…
Deep X-ray surveys have shown that the cosmic X-ray background (XRB) is largely due to the accretion onto supermassive black holes, integrated over the cosmic time. These surveys have resolved more than 80% of the 0.1-10 keV X-ray…
Special and general relativistic effects on the X-ray emissions, especially the continuum spectra, from the accretion disks around black holes are investigated using the ray-tracing method. Because both the special and general relativistic…
These notes resulted from a series of lectures at the IAC winter school. They are designed to help students, especially those just starting in subject, to get hold of the fundamental tools used to study accretion powered sources. As such,…
The observations and theory of the exciting new class of galactic black hole X-ray transients is reviewed. Seven of these systems have measured mass functions or mass estimates in excess of stable neutron stars, making them excellent black…
We study the hard X-ray (20-100 keV) variability of the Galactic Center (GC) and of the nearby sources on the time scale of 1000 s. We find that 3 of the 6 hard X-ray sources detected by INTEGRAL within the central 1 degree of the Galaxy…
A framework for the interpretation of the spectral states of black hole X-ray transients based on the diversity of accretion disk models is introduced. Depending on the mass accretion rate, it is proposed that the accretion disk is…
The X-ray Background (XRB) probably originates from the integrated X-ray emission of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Modelling of its flat spectrum implies considerable absorption in most AGN. Compton down-scattering means that sources in…
We present the results of a new global radiation transport code coupled to a general relativistic magneto-hydrodynamic simulation of an accreting, non-rotating black hole. For the first time, we are able to explain from first principles in…
We present a pilot study of the X-ray properties of intermediate-mass (~10^5-10^6 M_sun) black holes in active galaxies using the Chandra X-ray telescope. Eight of the 10 active galaxies are detected with a significance of at least 3 sigma,…
We present the results of the analysis of a sample of 17 low-luminosity (L_x < 1e42 erg/s), radio loud AGNs in massive galaxies. The sample is extracted from the SDSS database and it spans uniformly a wide range in optical [OIII] emission…
In a recent work we demonstrated that a novel X-ray scaling method, originally introduced for Galactic black holes (GBHs), can be reliably extended to estimate the mass of supermassive black holes accreting at a moderate to high level. Here…